NaOH

New York claims a small victory in 'forever war on rats' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42918425 - Feb 2025 (204 comments)

Cats are no match for New York City's rats (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38333054 - Nov 2023 (77 comments)

How rats became an inescapable part of city living - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19413214 - Mar 2019 (52 comments)

The Case for Leaving City Rats Alone (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19207172 - Feb 2019 (14 comments)

Drones Help Rid Galapagos Island of Invasive Rats - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19078518 - Feb 2019 (58 comments)

New Zealand’s War on Rats (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16891549 - April 2018 (34 comments)

New Zealand’s War on Rats Could Change the World - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15730337 - Nov 2017 (3 comments)

Please submit that article.

https://archive.is/TZ2Hs

It's a choice. I go to the supermarket twice a week, not shopping for much. I switched the store I use three, four months ago, but I can already talk about some of the employees at the store I visit. Louis is back where he grew up right now because his 97-year-old grandfather died. Among other things, he feels lucky grandpa's passing came after the new year because of his time-off allotment. Nikki had great holidays, mostly because her adult daughter was here for a week. Nadine ("Shh.") has decided she's going to retire at the end of the month but hasn't yet told anyone at the store.

Raffy, the UPS delivery guy I see maybe five times a year? He's doing well, finally feeling things slowing down some after the holidays. His fiancé will finish her graduate degree this spring, then they're going to decide if they want to stay here or move back to the state where they were born. They like it here, but think job opportunities will be better back home.

I'm sure many here are familiar with "This is Water," the commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace. Many often cite his line, "Everybody worships," his observation that we all hold aspects of life in reverence, whether religious things or otherwise. It's a valid, pithy point, but I always thought the key part to his speech comes later and has been widely overlooked:

And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving.... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

He delivered that speech in 2005. Before the modern smartphone. All those people I mentioned earlier were strangers. That's no longer the case because all of us chose to interrupt what we were doing and open up a little to someone unfamiliar. It's a choice. Or, as Bob Dylan once sang,

Freedom, just around the corner from you

But with truth so far off, what good will it do

I'm taking a moment to recognize once more the work that user @atdrummond (Alex Thomas Drummond) did for a couple years to help others here. I did not know him, don’t think I ever interacted with him, and I did not benefit from his generosity, but I admired his kindness. Just beautiful.

Ask HN: Who needs holiday help? (Follow up thread) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38706167 - Dec 2023 (9 comments)

Ask HN: Who needs help this holidays? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38492378 - Dec 2023 (210 comments)

Tell HN: Thank You - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34140096 - Dec 2022 (42 comments)

Tell HN: Everyone should have a holiday dinner this year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34122118 - Dec 2022 (58 comments)

Unfortunately, Alex died a few months after his last round of holiday giving, about 1½ years ago now.

Tell HN: In Memory of Alexander Thomas Drummond - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40508725 - May 2024 (5 comments)

If you read the comments in that last thread, know that @toomuchtodo followed through last year and kept the tradition alive. Amazing and magnificent.

Ask HN: Who needs help this holidays? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42291246 - Dec 2024 (46 comments)

Related on the business side, and from the last two years:

AI Chip Startup Groq Raises $750M at $6.9B Valuation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45276985 - Sept 2025 (5 comments)

Groq Raises $640M to Meet Soaring Demand for Fast AI Inference - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41162875 - Aug 2024 (34 comments)

AI chip startup Groq lands $640M to challenge Nvidia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41162463 - Aug 2024 (12 comments)

Groq CEO: 'We No Longer Sell Hardware' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39964590 - April 2024 (149 comments)

There's a lot from @dang about how the site goal is optimizing for curiosity and what that means in practice.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Maybe that's new? Either way, great to know.

There's nothing nebulous; there's no workaround for 404media's articles.

Tell HN: Paywalls with workarounds are OK; paywall complaints are off topic - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 - Sept 2015 (160 comments)

BDZ is Balgarski Darzhavni Zheleznitsi, Bulgaria's national railway.

A valid HTML zip bomb - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44670319 - July 2025 (37 comments)

I use zip bombs to protect my server - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43826798 - April 2025 (452 comments)

How to defend your website with ZIP bombs (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38937101 - Jan 2024 (75 comments)

The Most Clever 'Zip Bomb' Ever Made Explodes a 46MB File to 4.5 Petabytes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20410681 - July 2019 (5 comments)

Defending a website with Zip bombs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14707674 - July 2017 (183 comments)

Zip Bomb - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4616081 - Oct 2012 (108 comments)

From another article...

The project was completed in less than a year, ahead of schedule, and on budget.

"After more than nine years of planning and work...."

The overpass is the single largest bridge structure for wildlife in North America and one of the largest in the world at 200 feet wide and 209 feet long covering 41,800 square feet, nearly an acre. 76 girders hold up the bridge deck.

https://governorsoffice.colorado.gov/governor/news/cdot-comp...

So it was basically a decade-long project and in that context $15M doesn't seem that high. Along with the wildlife benefits, it sounds like the economic benefits will be immediate and ongoing since the area has had "an average of one wildlife-vehicle crash a day in the fall and spring wildlife movement seasons."

I have no issue with simonw's work/comments; I've never gone near it because it's far afield from my non-tech world. He is, though, someone who breaks one HN guideline:

Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff part of the time, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.

His submissions here are usually to his own work. Admittedly, that HN guideline is like an obscure 19th-century law which is still on the books that few know of and is never enforced. Even so, he's clearly well-regarded based on the amount of conversation his blog posts elicit.

'Profound' and 'strange' have distinct meanings. I'd suggest the title be re-edited to either

Playing Santa did strange things to Bob Rutan

or just the first line of the Esquire title:

Playing Santa does strange things to a man

Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Oliver Sacks put himself into his case studies. What was the cost? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46251654 - Dec 13 2025 - (25 comments)

Oliver Sacks Put Himself into His Case Studies. What Was the Cost? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46204853 - Dec 9 2025 (29 comments)

Previously:

The Paris Pneumatic Clock Network (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19441300 - Mar 2019 (33 comments)

At least as of Sequoia, the Settings > iCloud > Drive > Optimize Mac Storage option enables iCloud Drive files to be stored offline. Likewise, right clicking any iCloud Drive files in the Finder includes a Keep Downloaded option. Since I minimally use iCloud Drive, in the past (older OSes) I also had Hazel make copies of iCloud Drive files so they were certain to be in backups.

Previously:

Good conversations have lots of doorknobs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35874183 - May 2023 (20 comments)

Good conversations have lots of doorknobs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32542260 - Aug 2022 (149 comments)

I would recommend the 2021 three-part Acquired podcast series on Berkshire. Episodes are long, though there are transcripts if you prefer reading over listening.

https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/berkshire-hathaway-part-i

https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/berkshire-hathaway-part-ii

https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/berkshire-hathaway-part-iii

That said, I'll note this quote from Buffett:

“I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that Tim Cook has made Berkshire a lot more money than I've ever made,” Buffett told the audience, referencing the remarkable 680% surge in Apple's stock since Berkshire first began acquiring shares in early 2016.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-says-embarrass...

Among others...

https://apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html

https://apollo.im-ldi.com

https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/albums/

(2020)

It's an age-old convention....

Bonus points for the wordplay.

Good chance that's what captures our different Siri experiences. The few times I've done it spoken was always with AirPods and I always waited for the Siri reply (been a while; is it, "Uh-huh"?) after I said, "Hey, Siri." But my experience activating Siri with speech is so minimal as to be untrustworthy of anything broader.

My Siri-initiated timers are always done with my phone, probably 50 or more each week (work stuff). The only time I get a failure is when I release the side button too quickly. I've made certain the spoken feedback is enabled to reduce the risk of me making that mistake. (Settings > Siri > Siri Responses > Prefer Spoken Responses)

As for, "What time is it?"... Try activating Siri and only saying, "Time."

Activate Siri and then say the amount of time you'd like on the timer. For me, that's holding the side button then only saying, "20 minutes."

The one caveat is that once the timer you want is two and a half hours or longer, then Siri replies by asking what you would like to convert to.

Previously:

Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside Swiss Official Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22490017 - Mar 2020 (22 comment)

Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside Swiss Official Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22461602 - Mar 2020 (1 comment)

Cartographers Have Been Hiding Covert Illustrations Inside Swiss Official Maps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22407413 - Feb 2020 (1 comment)

Previous and related:

Hong Kong's Famous Bamboo Scaffolding Hangs on (For Now) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44080549 - May 2025 (65 comments)

Bamboo Scaffolding in Hong Kong - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42820011 - Jan 2025 (3 comments)

Why Hong Kong uses bamboo scaffolding, and meet the spider-men who climb it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42665355 - Jan 2025 (2 comments)

Previous and related:

how come a company founded over 100 years ago has the fastest site - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41883419 - Oct 2024 (15 comments)

McMaster-Carr: A refreshingly fast, thoughtful, and well-organized website - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34306793 - Jan 2023 (37 comments)

Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34000502 - Dec 2022 (169 comments)

Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32976978 - Sept 2022 (494 comments)

McMaster-Carr: Beautifully organized and informational industrial product store - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24803857 - Oct 2020 (27 comments)

The podcast Criminal did an episode about Ghostwatch this past Halloween.

https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-338-ghostwatch-10-31-2025